This site is one of the funniest things I've seen lately. If you like the Department of Homeland Security, and being scared out of your mind, you'll get a kick out of this.

I've had far too much caffeine and sugar to be able to sleep anytime soon, so I might as well post my Oscar commentary now instead of tomorrow.

I watched the show with a large group of friends, something I haven't done in years. It was definitely the wildest Oscar ceremony I've ever seen, with the war dominating the thoughts, if not the words and actions, of most of the nominees.

Chris Cooper, winning Best Supporting Actor, got the first Iraq comment in at 8:58 (for those who had that time in the pool). I'm glad he won, though I thought the award would go to Christopher Walken instead.

I was surprised by Catherine Zeta-Jones winning for Chicago; I thought Meryl Streep had that award locked up.

I haven't seen Bowling for Columbine, but I'm glad Michael Moore won for it. However, the Academy had to know that by giving him the Oscar, they'd be opening up the podium for just the sort of acceptance speech/diatribe that he gave tonight. I heard more cheers than boos, but either way, it was too much. But it was quite the "Wow!" moment at our party. I'm sure that Gil Cates (the Oscar show producer) will make sure Moore's never invited back.

I cheered for Adrien Brody's winning Best Actor for The Pianist; it was an exceptional performance that completely deserved the Oscar. Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson were amazing as well, but Brody went beyond either of them, adopting an accent, learning the piano, and starving himself for months. His speech was by far the best of the night. Aside from the sentiments he expressed extemporaneously, I'm always impressed when a winner can get Bill "Stick Man" Conti to stop the orchestra. And when else would he ever get the chance to make out with Halle Berry?

Nicole Kidman winning Best Actress wasn't much of a surprise. Despite what the press may have said, I think this was her year, much like 2001 was Julia Roberts' year, when she won for Erin Brockovich. I enjoyed her speech as well. Does anyone else think that her divorce from Tom Cruise was the best thing that could have happened to her career?

When the time came for the Oscar for Best Song, we all had the same question: what happened to the fifth song? Eminem had already said that he wouldn't show up at the awards to perform his song, but I assumed that someone else would step up, or that at least they'd show some form of a video of it. So it was unexpected when his song won. And who was the guy who accepted the Oscar? Apparently someone who knows Eminem well enough to call him "Marshall." Someone at our party pointed out that it will be hard for Eminem to say that the establishment doesn't like him. He's won Grammys and now an Oscar. They like you, Marshall, they really, really like you.

Roman Polanski winning Best Director had to be the shocker of the evening. I thought that the award would go to Martin Scorsese if it didn't go to Rob Marshall. Shows what I know. Again, The Pianist was a fantastic movie, and I certainly think Polanski deserved it, but it was a surprise to hear his name. Too bad that he couldn't be there to accept in person.

Finally, Chicago won Best Picture, so despite the twists and turns of the evening, all is right with the entertainment world tonight. The best picture of 2002 won the award it completely deserved. On a personal note, while I doubt I will win my Oscar pool at work, I did pick Adrien Brody to win, and I correctly guessed that the Best Picture winner would win six Oscars total.

I'd get into a fashion review, but there were no standout bad choices that I can remember right now, so the heck with that. I'll leave that for tomorrow's morning shows.

Liz is out of town again this weekend, visiting a friend in Atlanta, so once again I'm on my own for entertainment. I had to be up at 5 AM this morning for a test of my office's disaster recovery plan, so after that was all over I slept until 1 PM. After I got up, I sat around the apartment for a while, watching the NCAAs, then decided I had to ge out for a while. I had hoped to avoid all the war protests in my neighborhood, but I had no such luck. There were hundreds of protesters literally right outside my doorstep. I saw a large group of police in riot gear hustling two protesters down Macdougal Street; the crowd rumor was that they were burning the American flag. After that, I headed uptown and spent some time browsing in Best Buy and Barnes and Noble. On the way home two hours later, I saw more riot squad police jogging down 8th Street, as the helicopters continued to hover overhead. Checking NY1 News' web site, I read that the police are still encountering trouble dispersing the crowd. It's a beautiful day but I'm glad I decided to come home when I did. I'd hate to get arrested just for trying to get into my apartment.

Witnessing all of this makes me think about my opinion on the war. I'm still opposed to it, but not enough to take to the streets and shout about it. I support the protesters' right to assemble and demonstrate against the war; it's the right to this sort of protest that we're supposedly fighting to provide to the Iraqi people. As an American, I also support our troops and the job they're doing over there. I don't think we should have started this war, or even provoked it by our military buildup and strong-arming in the UN, but now that we've started shooting, we need to finish it as quickly as possible. I'm scared of the threat of terrorist reprisals, but I'm reminding myself that the September 11 attacks were not in response to any direct actions by the US, but in response to our way of life. Another attack could come because of the war, or could come even if we hadn't invaded Iraq. I don't think that there will necessarily be a connection between the two (though if there is another attack, the press and the government may try to influence popular opinion one way or the other).

My Final Four picks are Pitt, Maryland, Wake Forest, and Arizona, with Wake losing to the Wildcats in the final. I'm not sure how I came to these conclusions, but they made sense at the time. I've lost several Sweet 16 teams from my bracket already, including the Mississippi State Bulldogs in a piss-poor effort against Butler last night. I enjoyed watching the game with other State fans at a bar uptown, but the game just sucked. There's always next year, of course. And my team, Georgetown, is still in the NIT, so I've got that going for me. How long is it until football season?

So we're going to war in a few days. I'm tired of all the media discussion and the arguments of the various governments. I just hope it's over quickly with as little loss of life as possible. The nation is back on orange alert, so I made sure we had plenty of food and water. That's all I'm prepared to do in case of terrorist attack. Sealing our apartment with duct tape and plastic is virtually impossible, so I'm rolling the dice that any mischief that happens is conventional (and that it happens far away from me.)

I've watched some great movies lately. Last week we rented The Count of Monte Cristo which was one hell of a fun time. This movie has everything: a great story, good performances, swordplay, political intrigue, and lots of cleavage. It's the ultimate revenge fantasy played out in fantastic fashion. Liz didn't think much of the movie, but I liked it enough that I'm tempted to buy it. It's that good.

I just finished watching Children of Dune on the Sci-Fi Network. I enjoyed the network's production of Dune from 2000, but thought that the sets looked a little too fake and not up to the epic standards of the novel, or even the David Lynch version of the story. This new film, of the second and third books in Frank Herbert's saga, outdoes the original movie in production values, acting, and story. I didn't mind the changes to the story (the children are 17 instead of 10 years old, Wensicia is older than her sister Irulan, who was the first born in the novels, no metallic eyes for Duncan Idaho) and I thought that the screenwriter stayed close to the spirit of the novels, similar to the way Peter Jackson has stayed true to the spirit of the Lord of the Rings. Speaking of which, the director even cribbed some details from the end of Fellowship of the Ring at the end of Children, with slo-mo camera work for a main character's death, with dramatic music playing as another character brutally stabs an assassin. And Susan Sarandon tries hard, but her Wensicia comes across as more evil than I remember from the book. And my final complaint is that I only had a clue what was going on because I've read the books several times. Without that, I'd have been completely lost. Even so, I'm still not clear as to why Leto thinks the "Golden Path" is the only way out of the imperial crisis of the story, and the movie didn't help explain it at all. I hope they make a movie of God Emperor of Dune, but I'm not sure the world is ready for a fifteen-foot worm with a human face. And the last two novels are extremely sexual, so those might be even harder to adapt. Still, they've done excellent work so far, and I'm sure future endeavors will be well done and well received.

I really enjoyed the three-day Novell class. Starting class at 8 AM wasn't much fun, but it also wasn't as bad as I thought it was. The course material was interesting enough that I didn't even notice the time. I took my laptop with me, and Novell was kind enough to provide a wireless network with Internet access for those who were inclined to use it, so I was able to keep up with work e-mail while following the class. Instead of the usual desktop PCs and monitors for class work, Novell provided four laptops per two-student group instead (and mine made five on my table). I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to not have to share my work area with another student so I didn't get bogged down on the lab work in conversation with a partner. I offered to talk to myself instead, but no one thought it was a good idea. Anyway, I'd definitely recommend the advanced, intensive Novell classes to someone else who was a real Novell geek like myself. I don't think someone who works with Novell products only part of the time would enjoy this type of class as much.

So it's back to the regular grind tomorrow. Ehh, I had a good run.

I've got three days of intensive Novell NetWare 6 training starting tomorrow, so I might not be able to post much until Friday. (Not that it would be something new....) I hear bad things about these classes: they're extremely long (8 AM to 5 PM), breaks are infrequent, and during such breaks you are strongly urged to do lab work, and there's no Internet access. However, no one who's gone to these classes from my office has been a Novell guru, so I'm hoping to get the definitive experience here. If I don't get anything out of this class, I'm not about to recommend it or any like it to my co-workers. For the same price, I could be taking a five-day class counting toward my certification, and I'm sure that will factor into my impressions of this class.

On Saturday night, I accompanied Liz to a Tori Amos concert at Radio City Music Hall. I say "accompanied" because the music of Tori Amos is not something I would normally choose to listen to of my own accord. I'm familiar with some of her songs, but I'm definitely not a fan. My wife is, though, so I went with her to the concert. I was not alone: the audience consisted of groups of women and couples of women and their sensitive male significant others. I thought I saw a sympathetic look on the faces of some of the guys, as we recognized our collective predicament. Most of us would have preferred to be at any other event, but we were doing our coupled duty by being there. As far as I can tell, it was a good concert. The audience was most appreciative of Ms. Amos' performance, and she responded with two encores. Unfortunately, since it's not my kind of music, and the hall was warm, and I was digesting a large meal, I found myself dozing off during the show. That's quite a thing to consider, falling asleep at a rock concert. Now I need to find a concert or sporting event to which I can drag Liz, so she can return the favor.

It was Phil's Big Weekend At The Movies.

Since Liz was out of town, my entertainment options were limited. I won't go to restaurants or bars by myself, and I don't relish the idea of spending all my evenings at home with the cats, so that left me with the movies as a relatively cheap way to pass the time. Unintentionally, I went to the same multiplex three days in a row, and while it wasn't all bad, I don't want to be a regular at the AMC Empire in Times Square. So I won't be going back there for a few weeks. Anyway, here are my reviews of the two new movies I saw, and a few comments on the movie that I saw for the third time.

Friday night: Frida, starring Oscar nominee Salma Hayek --

Frida was better than I expected from the reviews. Hayek and Alfred Molina are excellent as the leads, and the director does a great job integrating Kahlo's artwork into the movie. I don't feel like I have the complete picture of Kahlo's life after seeing this movie, but I've got a decent idea. Hayek's Oscar nod for this role is well deserved, but even though the Academy tends to like roles where the actor has an affliction or handicap, she's not going to beat Nicole Kidman.

Saturday night: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers --

I'm a geek, so I had to see this film one more time in the theater. The orcs still lose the battle of Helm's Deep if you see it more than once, and I didn't see anything new this time around. But I did notice more of the film's emotion than on the previous two viewings. The theater got a little dusty when Theoden visited his son's grave. I think that Arwen's departure from Rivendell can be seen ambiguously; we're led to believe that she's leaving Middle-earth, but I think we'll find out in Return of the King that she's defied her father and gone to Gondor instead. Since that book ends with their marriage, unless there's a radical departure from Tolkien's story, she's got to end up there anyway. Besides, she has to bring Aragorn his sword (I'm still upset that they didn't give him a re-forged Narsil before the Fellowship left Rivendell). Also, at one point in TTT, Aragorn embraces Arwen and caresses her ears with his fingers. I mentioned this to Jess, and she suggested that he has a fetish. Finally, at one point in TTT when Gollum is screaming and howling, I wanted to turn to someone else and say, in my best Graham Chapman voice, "What an eccentric performance!" But no one I knew was there to hear my witty remarks.

Sunday afternoon: The Pianist, starring Oscar nominee Adrien Brody --

I've seen several movies about the Holocaust, and I knew I wasn't ever going to be in the mood to see another one. And for the first half of this movie, I questioned my need to see any of the events depicted. We know that the Germans are going to humiliate the Jews in the streets. Then they're going to start shooting them randomly. And now they're loading them onto trains for Treblinka. Having seen all of these things in Schindler's List and other movies I saw back in Sunday school (yes, Jews have Sunday school, at least in my community growing up), I knew exactly what was going to happen before it showed up on the screen. But then the movie takes a different turn, as the lead character avoids Treblinka and ends up hiding out in a series of apartments in Warsaw, watching through window cracks events like the ghetto uprising and the eventual defeat of the Germans. Adrien Brody is fantastic as the pianist who goes from playing on the radio to combing through bombed-out buildings for scraps of food. His performance is every bit as good as Daniel Day-Lewis' in Gangs of New York or Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt. But I think an Oscar for him would be an upset; Day-Lewis is the clear favorite here.

I'll write an Oscar picks entry in a few weeks. Clearly that's something much on my mind at this time of the year, and unusually enough I've had the chance to see most of the nominated films and roles of 2002. Liz and I aren't doing our usual Oscar picks bet this year, so I need some way to express my views on the nominees. Damn, I'm excited about writing that one.

The passing of Mr. Rogers is a sad occasion in my household. Like millions of people, I grew up watching Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. I hadn't thought about the show for many years, in the same way that I'd forgotten about Sesame Street or The Electric Company. But last night we watched a 1990 documentary on the show and it brought back all sorts of good memories. Characters like King Friday, Daniel, and Mr. McFeely who came into my house every afternoon and made my day a little better. Even as a child, I thought the shoes-and-cardigan routine was goofy, since I didn't have to change shoes when I came home, but it was just part of the show's charm. I always wanted to know how that trolley got from the house to the Neighborhood of Make Believe, and I wanted one in my house (the trolley, not the Neighborhood). I clearly remember watching the episode with Yo Yo Ma, though I think it aired when I was past the age of watching the show regularly. And I'll have to check with my mother, but I think I met Mr. McFeely when I was a child, but I don't remember that as well. Finally, I hated the ending of the show, because that meant that I had to wait until the next day for another visit from Mr. Rogers and his friends. I love reading all the tributes to Fred Rogers in newspapers and on websites. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has some especially moving coverage. I can't write anything more eloquent about the man, so I will just say that Fred Rogers will certainly be missed.

I've uploaded a few pictures from the blizzard to my photos page. Check them out here.

Slashdot posted this article yesterday, titled "Why Nerds are Unpopular." As a one-time nerd and full-time geek, stories like this strike close to home. The author makes a number of valid points about the plight of the smart kid in today's American school system. He says that the years between 11 and 17 are the worst for the smart students, with 11-14 being the worst of the worst. I can relate to that: Seventh grade was the worst year for me in school. Other kids picked on me for years, starting well before 11, but in seventh grade, the torment reached its peak. I was chubby, unathletic, played a weird musical instrument (the viola), had geeky glasses with large plastic frames, my clothes were out of fashion, and I was among the smartest kids in the school. So I was teased mercilessly all year. I don't have any fond memories of that year, except maybe for my bar mitzvah. He argues that smart kids, given the option of being popular but losing intellect in the bargain, would choose to remain smart but unpopular. That's true too. I realized early on in school that I was smarter than most of those around me, and I wouldn't have dumbed myself down for any reason, not even to alleviate the teasing. He argues for a long stretch that American schools are micro-societies along the lines of Lord of the Flies or adult prisons, where the teachers are wardens and the students are inmates. Many schools are suburban and sterile, so the students have to create their own society and order so that they can have a frame of reference. When you get out of high school and into the real world, you have a society to belong to, and you finally recognize that the social order of your school years was an illusion, an artificial construct created for the survival of the group. That sounds about right to me: how else can anyone explain the cliques of students that cannot be transcended under any circumstances?

But I disagree with some of the details. The author argues that the nerds want to be popular, but instead of devoting time to figuring out how to be popular (as if it's a game or a school assignment), they're too busy doing their schoolwork or working on hobbies to try to be popular. I don't think that's true. First of all, I don't think I ever wanted to be popular. I would have settled for any outcome of events whereby I wasn't tormented as badly as I was at the time. For me, it wasn't about working too hard on other things to worry about becoming more popular. No matter what I would have done at that age, I would have been teased and ostracized. The other students had prejudged me a nerd, and there was nothing I could do about it. Eventually, I outgrew my awkwardness, as did many of the students around me. By the time I was a junior in high school, I had learned how to deal with the teasing (don't take it personally, something my parents had told me for years, but I hadn't believed until then) and I found some activities that broadened my circle of friends. The point is that it was a stage in my life that I don't think could have been avoided by my working harder at being popular.

He also brings up suicide, and suggests that it's the result of keeping students in prison-like schools and treating teenagers as if they don't belong in the adult world any more than they belong in a child's world. I think he's got this one wrong too. I considered suicide a few times growing up, at my most depressed moments. But I knew that it wasn't the solution to any of my problems. It would have been a cry for attention, but it wasn't attention I was lacking. It just wasn't the way out of the hole I was in, and somehow I knew that I just had to give things time and they would eventually improve. And they did, since I'm still here. The sad thing is that in my high school, we had a few suicides and several more failed attempts. But the kids who were trying to kill themselves were the popular ones! How much sense did that make to anyone? How could an attractive cheerleader with lots of friends decide to hang herself in her closet? What drove other students to overdose on pills? Even the popular kids had problems, just like the nerds. There wasn't any real difference among any of us; we were all tormented in one way or another. Some people chose the wrong solution to their problems.

The more I read the article, the more garbage I find. I think the author is trying to make a good point, and for the most part he succeeds, but he rambles too much and brings up too many points that aren't further developed. And he doesn't have any solutions to offer. Kind of like me sometimes. It's an interesting read, but I think that there are child psychologists out there who would be able to offer much better insight into the issues of today's teens.

Yesterday was quite a holiday in New York. Liz and I both had the day off, so we spent it relaxing at home and playing in the snow a bit. Around 3:30 PM we went out to see what stores were open in our neighborhood. Starbucks was closed, but Xando was open, so we enjoyed mint mochas and watched what little traffic there was go by. Liz pointed out that trudging through the snow was a good aerobic workout on a day when the most work we had to do was get out of bed. Even though I'm no stranger to large snowfalls, as you probably read below, I hadn't previously been in New York for a blizzard. So I took some pictures of buried cars and kids romping through Washington Square Park. I'll post a link to those later tonight, when I have a chance to upload them.

We watched with great interest as Evan chose Zora on Joe Millionaire. As Lisa De Moraes pointed out in her Washington Post TV column today, it was almost like FOX wanted us to root for her from the beginning. Gee, FOX wouldn't do that. I'm glad the show didn't end with a wedding, or the revelation that Evan was really a millionaire after all, or that Zora was. But the "mind-blowing" twist that the producers gave the happy couple a million dollars to split was anything but. The reason that most people were suggesting outlandish scenarios (like the women getting to choose Paul over Evan, or that Evan would choose one of the women he dumped earlier) was that giving them any amount of money was an obvious ploy and thus not the way the producers would go. But we are talking about the FOX network, after all, so the obvious choice was the only thing they could come up with. I would have preferred something like this:
Before Evan reveals his choice to anyone, Paul tells Evan that the show's producers have just given one of the women a large sum of money, like $1 or 2 million. Or after he picks one, they tell him that the other one suddenly has lots of money. Now Evan has to choose between love and money. That would have been more interesting than the lame stunt they pulled last night.

Still, it was a fun two hours. The first hour wasn't the stale clip show review I expected; I guess they got that out of the way last week. Instead, we got a closer look at some of the women, including Heidi. Wasn't it amazing that the man she's currently dating is even dumber and shallower than Evan? I wasn't sure that was possible. And Evan's friends that turned up as character witnesses were just as meat-headed as he is. In the second half of the show, Evan did a good job of keeping the audience guessing, even as he gave Zora what seemed to be the brush-off speech. When he gave Sarah the real farewell address, I would have enjoyed hearing him say, among his other platitudes, "...and I really enjoyed banging your rocket body." But that wouldn't have been too prime-time friendly, even for FOX. I'll have to put off recovering my dignity for another week, since I won't miss the "reunion" show next Monday night. I forget who said it, but someone on TV either last night or this morning (it might have been Mark Consuelos subbing for Regis on "Live") suggested that FOX is looking high and low for people dumb enough to fall for this stunt again, since it was such a ratings bonanza. I'd love to see the kind of people, male and female, that would appear on that show.

At the moment, somewhere between six and twelve inches of snow are falling on New York City. I always love the tranquility of falling snow. It silences even the most bustling of cities, and if anything can quiet New York, snow is it. Granted, I stepped outside at 11:40 PM on a holiday Sunday night, during a terror alert, but there are few people on the street and even fewer cars. There's not a police siren to be heard anywhere. I think it's fantastic. I'm growing tired of winter and temperatures below 20 degrees (and I can't believe I'd ever have that thought), but a quiet snowfall is always welcome. We're well-stocked on food and water, just in case we can't get out to the store tomorrow, but I'm not at all worried that this latest blizzard will be a problem for the city. If anything, I'm upset that the only day this week that the snow would be severe enough to close schools and cancel work is the day that I have off for the holiday anyway. I've missed the last few big snowstorms in New York, so I'm glad to be here for one. Maybe we'll go out tomorrow and have a snowball fight in Washington Square Park. This assumes that I can get Liz to leave our cozy apartment. I like to think that since she grew up in Mississippi, she probably doesn't have much experience with snow. Then I remember that she also spent a semester in Russia during college, where she lived a lifetime's worth of winter in six months. I guess I can't blame her if she wants to give this storm a miss and stay inside.

On Monday night, we finally learn which woman Evan chooses on Joe Millionaire. FOX promises a twist that will "blow your mind!" If it's anything like last week's twist where he didn't choose anyone, they can keep it to themselves. I've read the news reports about people who will boycott the final show because of FOX's bait-and-switch las week, and I think those people are full of it. If you've stayed with the show this far, how can you pass up finding out how it ends? I'm as upset as anyone else about last week's lame clip job, but I'll still give my conscience the night off and tune in tomorrow. Then on Tuesday, I can go about regaining my self-respect.

I would have written earlier this week, but it was another busy week at work, and this level orange terror alert had me spooked for a few days. On Thursday morning, I got up to go to the gym as usual, and put on the "Today" show. The first three news stories were the tensions with Iraq, North Korea has a missile that can reach the western US, and al Qaeda is ready to attack. My first thought was "can I just go back to bed?" To ward off the fear, I reminded myself that my chances of being a casualty in a terror attack are far smaller than my chances of being hit by a car on any given day. And I stocked up on food and water, just to be safe. We've got enough tuna, soup, and peanut butter to last a few days if there's any unpleasantness.

Liz and I continued our run up to the Oscars by seeing The Hours on Saturday. It was good, but I didn't get into it like other movies I've seen this year. The acting was spectacular all around, which was good, since that's all there is to the movie. It's not like an action picture that distracts you from subpar performances with special effects and explosions. But Chicago is still the best movie I've seen in the past few years, and that includes the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I saw it again last weekend, and tapped my feet and sang along (quietly, of course) throughout the film. It just makes me happy in a way that few movies ever have. I can't wait to see it one more time.

There's lots of good stuff over on Slashdot today. There's a story about the future of space exploration, another about Dell's proposed elimination of the floppy disk drive from new computers, and one about discovering how many real devices are behind a NAT router/firewall. If it weren't so late and I weren't so tired, I'd read more of the comments. There was a comment in the NASA story linking to this article by Gregg Easterbrook (aka ESPN.com's TMQ) on the funding and construction of the Columbia 23 years ago. It's amazing to me the way the government conducts its business and the way contracts are fulfilled. Based on this story, it's a real wonder the shuttle flew at all. I can't believe NASA once predicted there would be 50 shuttle flights a year. As far as I can remember, the best NASA managed was about 8-10 a year. And I hate to imagine the costs of launching a satellite with the shuttle today, if they predicted it would be well over $65 million in the 1980s.

On to other things. I bought some new CDs on Tuesday. Two were a two-volume set of the complete Beethoven concerto repertoire. I can't believe I lasted this long without owning at least a few of the piano concerti and the violin concerto, but I didn't have any of them until this week. I debated over several different recordings, and I even spent most of Sunday evening reading reviews of various sets on different store web sites. Finally, I decided on the Philips two-volume set, both of which were bargain-priced at $16 each. Since I had a $50 gift certificate from my wife's parents, that left me with another $14 and change to spend.

On Monday morning at work, I was listening to WQXR as usual, when they started talking about their CD pick of the week. It's a new three-CD set of Bach's Goldberg Variations, played by the late Glenn Gould. Those who know about Gould will recall that he recorded the Goldberg Variations twice in his career: in 1955 and again in 1981. Both recordings have been reissued many times, but this one combines the two (1955 on one CD, 1981 on another) and adds a third disc of 1955 recording session outtakes and an interview Gould gave to music critic Tim Page in 1982. WQXR has been playing the Variations all week, alternating between the two recordings: first, several variations from the 1955 CD, then the same variations from 1981 for comparison. And on Monday and Friday, they have another expert on the air discussing the differences between the two recordings. As soon as I heard the first few variations on Monday, I had to have the set. So that's where the rest of my gift card went. The Goldberg Variations has been one of my favorite pieces of music since I was in ninth grade, still learning about musical forms, and devouring anything I could get my hands on by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Haydn, and anything else my parents or the library had. I borrowed an Anthony Newman recording of the Variations on harpsichord many years ago and copied it to tape, and I've been carrying that around for a long time. I'd always thought that Bach's keyboard music made the most sense on harpsichord. After all, it's what Bach played and wrote the music for, and he predated the piano by at least fifty years. But after hearing Glenn Gould's recordings of the Variations, I'm not sure I ever need to go back to a harpsichord version. His performance gives me everything I've ever wanted to hear in this work.

I found out about the Columbia tragedy at the gym on Saturday afternoon. Liz and I usually don't watch much TV on Saturday mornings, so we hadn't tuned in when we got up. And I only checked my e-mail; I didn't make my usual rounds of the big Internet news sites, so my first exposure to the news was when we walked into the gym and saw the upstairs cardio machine/tv area crowded with people working out and watching. I listened to Queen II while working out, but I don't remember hearing a note of the music. I was too busy following the news.

I clearly remember watching the Challenger explosion 17 years ago. I was in sixth grade, home from school that day because of snow. I didn't watch the launch live, but whatever I was watching at 11:38 AM on NBC was interrupted by the news of the disaster. It was just unbelievable, that something like that could happen. And now it's happened again. I've always been a fan of astronomy and science fiction, so the losses of two shuttle orbiters and their crews hit me in a tender spot. They are reminders that space exploration is a dangerous endeavour that will claim more lives in the future. But it's an effort that must continue. There are no frontiers left on this planet, and as humanity expands, we will need to look for new frontiers in space. NASA should take the necessary time and effort to fix the problem that destroyed Columbia, and then we need to resume shuttle flights as soon as possible. And then we need to give NASA the money it needs to develop a replacement vehicle for the shuttle fleet. Then let's go to Mars already.

It's extremely late (or extremely early, depending on your perspective), but I had to write about this now.

I'm reading Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, based on Liz's recommendation, which was "you'll like it; it's all about music." I'm not that far into the book, but tonight I read a passage where the narrator describes a lecture by the town organist and piano teacher. The lecture is on Beethoven's Op. 111 piano sonata, which has only two movements, and the pianist plays the work and talks about why Beethoven only needed to write two movements. The description of the music, and the pianist's performance, steered me right onto the Internet, where I had to download an MP3 or some form of this sonata, so I would have a musical frame of reference. As good a job as Mann does describing the music, I had to hear it. After some time on Google, I found the sheet music in PDF format, but my skills at hearing printed music in my head are not what they once were. And this is late Beethoven, so it's especially difficult. After some more searching, I came across a "scriptorium," which had MIDI-like downloadable files of Beethoven's works. One quick plug-in for Winamp 2.x later, and I'm listening to Op. 111 and following along with the sheet music. But I had other things to do earlier tonight, so I didn't get around to listening to the piece until a few minutes ago.

While listening to the magnificent second movement (a theme and variations), about halfway through, the music sounded familiar. I'd heard it before. It's weird enough that I can't imagine once hearing it on the radio, so I struggled to remember the situation when I'd first heard it. All of a sudden, the music turned jazzy, like Beethoven in the 1820s had channeled Scott Joplin in the 1920s. And it came back to me, mostly. I think Anthony, a pianist friend of mine at Georgetown, had played a CD of it one night when we were studying. Either that, or Professor Philip Tacka, the music guru at Georgetown in the mid-1990s, had played it in a music history class I took. I'm fairly certain Anthony played it for me first, though, and he was as amazed by it as I was. It really took me back.

Hearing it again tonight blew me away for a second time, and reminded me of my youth, when I would discover new music like this all the time. I spent hours listening to my father's record collection and following the music with his orchestral scores, most of which my brother and I appropriated for our own. Then I'd stand in front of my stereo and conduct my own imaginary orchestra. Damn, I was a geek. But I had such a good time doing it. I miss those days: not a care in the world, all the possibilities of life open to me. Ehh, it's not that bad now, but I don't have those moments of discovery anymore. I think that's what I miss more: the sense that I'm learning something new, that another view of something I already knew has appeared. Occasionally, I get bursts of this kind of learning at work, when I'm playing with a new product, but it's just not the same. This would seem to be another indication that I need to revive my dormant musical skills. And that I need to get some sleep.

According to this editorial by Howard Fineman, we're invading Iraq on March 3. Set your countdown clocks accordingly. I also liked this column on ESPN.com last week, where Dan Shanoff argued that the US wouldn't invade Iraq prior to the Super Bowl, in case said invasion led to a cancellation of the game. I like the idea that Super Bowl Sunday has become an unofficial national holiday, and that it's just as important to the economy and national well-being as Thanksgiving or Christmas. All that's left is for the greeting card industry to sell Super Bowl cards, and the circle would be complete. The only problem with that idea is that most guys don't want to send "Happy Super Bowl Sunday!" cards to their buddies. Guys don't send cards to other guys, except for their fathers.

Jimmy Kimmel Live has turned out to be rather funny in its first few outings. Kimmel seems to be a different guy on ABC than he was on FOX or on the Man Show: he seems more confident and in control, while maintaining the same self-deprecating sense of humor that works for most late-night talk show hosts. Maybe it's his wardrobe; I'm used to seeing him in football jerseys or untucked shirts, looking more like a schlub than a star, and on JKL he's wearing a jacket. That makes me feel stupid. He's not really a different guy, but he just looks like it because he's cleaned up for the network. I like the fact that the show is live. The idea that anything can happen, that the whole production could come unhinged at any moment, gives it a freshness that the other talk shows lack. I'm getting tired of Jay Leno, I haven't watched Letterman much since he went to CBS, and I've never gotten into Craig Kilborn. I love Conan O'Brien, and overall I think he's funnier than Kimmel, but it's refreshing to have something else to channel-surf through late at night.

I left yesterday around 2 PM, for those who are interested in that sort of minutiae about my life.

Super Bowl XXXVII was entertaining for most of the game. I got bored when the Buccaneers took a 34-3 lead but got back into the game as the Raiders did. 5 INTs for Rich Gannon is a record I'm sure he doesn't want. I'm happy for Tampa Bay: they've finally shed the loser tag they had for so many years. Unfortunately this means we'll get to hear more from Keyshawn Johnson about how great he is. Why do the jackass players tend to win championships, while the nice guys like Tim Brown of the Raiders can't get a ring?

The commercials weren't as memorable as the ones in past years, but I did like the zebra referee, the guy wearing his dog as a rasta wig, and Terry Tate, Office Linebacker. The last one was by far the best ad during the game, and those who enjoyed it as I did can go to the web site to see more of the same. The four minute film expands on the ad, with much hilarity. I want Terry Tate working in my office.

Now I'm watching Alias and waiting for Jimmy Kimmel Live to premiere later. I have no idea what's going on with Alias, since I've never watched the show before. What is the Alliance? SD-6? And why did I let my wife program the VCR during the opening two minutes, when Jennifer Garner was in her underwear? Previously I hadn't thought of her as being attractive (her face is too angular) but she seems more rounded lately. The airplane sequence strongly reminded me of a similar bit in the video game No One Lives Forever. At least this particular show has Rutger Hauer, who's never gotten the best Hollywood roles but always gives a good performance. I might have to break out my DVD of Blade Runner after this, for some more Rutger Hauer action.

At the moment I'm sitting in my firm's midtown office, waiting for a phone call from my boss telling me it's OK to go home. Earlier this morning, my office, like the rest of the world, was hit with the latest Internet worm, disrupting most of our systems. At least it's not that early, I got a good night's sleep, I have Internet access here, and no one's dead because of this. (Maybe I should have put that bit first.) And in an amazing bit of luck, I had absolutely nothing planned for today. My Saturday was a tabula rasa, if you will. Liz is volunteering at the cat shelter this afternoon, so I have the rest of my day open, assuming I'm not here much longer. The weather's even warming up a little, to the point where it's not unbelievably uncomfortable to be outside.

More movie reviews:

This week, we watched Mulholland Drive on DVD. For most of the movie, we talked only about how neither of us had any clue what the hell was going on. The more we watched, the more confused we became. I spoiled the movie, but enhanced my comprehension, by looking at the cast list on imdb.com while the DVD spun. So when the story switched approximately two hours in, at least I was able to follow who the characters were supposed to be at that point. After the movie ended, we read more reviews online which helped to explain just what David Lynch was going for. The more we thought about it, the more we both loved the movie. I wish I'd hung onto it for a few more days, because I'd love to watch it again and see if I could catch more of the clues to the mysteries in the story. And for those with more prurient interests, Naomi Watts and Laura Harring are both easy on the eyes (as David Letterman used to say), and the lesbian subplot plays out in extremely steamy fashion. If you don't know it's coming, it's a little unexpected, but it fits into the story the more you think about it.

We also watched Orange County, which we rented as much for Jack Black as for anything else in the movie. It's got made-for-future-MTV-showings written all over it (it's short, it's easy to follow the plot, and it's not what I think of as "cinematic") but I think that helps more than it hinders. Surprisingly for a teen movie, there isn't much potty humor and no nudity, unless you count Jack Black in "skeevy" underpants in either category. He's easily the best thing in the movie, but Liz and I agree that he really can do no wrong. We've loved him in every movie we've seen with him in the cast, and still get laughs from the Tenacious D debut album (I can't believe I missed their HBO series -- must check iMesh when I get home). The rest of the cast is also fantastic: Colin Hanks is great, Schuyler Fisk (his girlfriend in the movie), Catherine O'Hara, John Lithgow, Lily Tomlin... it's a great cast.

Next up on my movie schedule is the extended version of Das Boot. After reading John Keegan's The Price of Admiralty, which included a lengthy description of life aboard a German U-boat, I thought it was time to watch the greatest film ever made about the subject. I just read the comment on the movie's imdb page, and I'm excited. I've enjoyed Wolfgang Petersen's other movies, and my friend Jon highly recommended the long version of Das Boot when it was in theaters a few years ago. Maybe that's how I'll spend my Saturday afternoon, if I ever get to leave.

I've been meaning to post several observations this week, but it was a busy one. I was in a training class for Sniffer Wireless LAN troubleshooting for two days, and even though I had Internet access, I had to pay attention to the class material, so posting from class wasn't really an option. And at home, I've been playing through Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, so instead of posting in my free time, I'm playing a game.

Anyway, in no particular order, are some of the thoughts I've had this past week.

On Pete Townshend's arrest on suspicion of child pornography possession: I hope his name is cleared eventually, but I'm not too confident. After all, how much research do you need to do on child pornography online? I think the stuff is like nuclear waste: sometimes you have to work with it but you never want it near you or to handle it personally. The farther away the stuff is from you, the better off you are.

Yarrhh, matey! Avast, ye scurvy dogs! Ye'll walk the plank next Sunday! The Super Bowl will be an all-pirate affair, as the Buccaneers and Raiders advanced to the championship game. Or, if you prefer, it's Jon Gruden vs. his old team, one year later. I like the pirate angle, but I bet the networks will play up the Gruden story instead. Too bad. I'll be rooting for the Bucs, as they have the longer history of mediocrity, and I just can't root for the "hated Oakland Raidaz," as Myron Cope would put it.

Liz and I saw About Schmidt yesterday afternoon. Jack Nicholson just won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for his performance in this movie, and I can't disagree with that choice. He was outstanding, as usual, and I thought the screenplay was also exceptional (it won a Golden Globe as well). I think that the Oscar for Best Actor will be a two-man race between Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis, who was amazing to watch in Gangs of New York (which I saw on Friday night). Speaking of Gangs, the opening was my favorite part of the movie. It combined elements of Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan (and others I can't think of right now) into a great tense battle scene that set the tone for the rest of the film. I thought the music for the opening, just drums and tin whistles, was especially effective. I want that music playing the next time I'm going into a difficult meeting or facing a tough problem. Kick that door open and go face Daniel Day-Lewis' gang for supremacy. Damn, it was cool. I still think Chicago will win Best Picture at the Oscars, but both of the movies I saw this weekend would be worthy choices as well.